Tag Archives: China

BEIJING (Reuters) – China said on Thursday it has approved HP Inc’s (HPQ.N) $ 1.1 billion purchase of Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) printer business with certain restrictions, citing concerns about the U.S. firm’s dominance of the domestic laser printer market.

HP announced the deal in September 2016, hoping to disrupt the $ 55 billion copier market by focusing on multifunction printers and more deeply embedding mobile and cloud printing technologies to its product solutions.

It hoped at the time to close the transaction within 12 months, pending regulatory review.

In a statement issued late on Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce said sale of A4 format laser printers by HP in China should be done on “fair and reasonable” terms and the firm must report every six months on their prices and related data to the ministry.

HP must not buy any stakes in other A4 printer manufacturers in China even if they are a minority equity investment, it said.

It must not adapt its printers to restrict compatibility with third-parties or claim in advertising that its printers are not compatible with other suppliers, the ministry said.

HP expects to close the acquisition in the fourth quarter which ends on Dec. 31, a spokeswoman said in an email. She declined to comment on the regulatory process.

Samsung was not immediately available for comment.

Under the deal, HP would add an intellectual property portfolio of more than 6,500 printing patents and nearly 1,300 researchers and engineers with expertise in laser printer technology, imaging electronics and printer supplies.

Cisco Systems is to form a joint venture with Chinese server maker Inspur, selling networking and cloud computing products in China. Cisco and Inspur will jointly invest $ 100 million in the project.

The partnership comes in the face of mutual suspicion between the US and Chinese government amid claims and counter claims of state sponsored cyber security threats.

In June Cisco was forced to remove several of its senior executives in China, amid reports of falling sales slide and Chinese government fears about the foreign ownership of networking equipment.

Cisco’s China sales fell 20 per cent on the previous year in the quarter ending on April 25 at a time when its global revenue gained 5.1 per cent. As its share of the Chinese router market fell from 21.2 per cent to 9.4 per cent the lost sales went to local rival Huawei Technologies, according to Bernstein Research.

Direct selling became more challenging, The Wall Street Journal has reported, after US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden said the NSA put surveillance tools in US technology products sold overseas.

US-Chinese technology company partnerships are growing in number and Microsoft announced on Thursday an alliance with Baidu and the Chinese state-owned private investment firm Tsinghua Unigroup on cloud technology. Last week Dell unveiled plans to invest $ 125 billion over five years in China. Earlier this year, IBM pledged to help develop China’s advanced chip industry with a ‘Made with China’ strategy, while chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm are developing chips with smaller Chinese companies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrived in Seattle this morning on a state visit to the US.

Chinese officials have said the partnerships will follow the pattern of car manufacturing agreements in the past, with foreign technology firms granted market access in return for shared technology and co-operation with Chinese industry.

If you can’t beat em, join forces with another company who can help run em off the road.

Lyft, the friendlier, mustachioed alternative to Uber in the U.S., announced Wednesday that it has entered into an “alliance” with Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s better positioned competitor in China, that will effectively launch Lyft in China and help beat back Uber in two key markets

Didi Kuaidi has invested $ 100 million in Lyft as part of an earlier round of private financing. The two companies will also collaborate on technology and product development, making it possible for Lyft passengers to access Didi Kuaidi in China without changing apps and vice versa as part of the new strategic partnership. Read more…